Louisiana's school vouchers need tough rules: An editorial

The scarcity of teachers and classroom space at New Living Word School in Ruston has quickly become a cautionary tale for the state's expanding school voucher program.

Rusty Costanza/The Times-PicayuneLawmakers entrusted Louisiana education Superintendent John White and the Board of Elementary and Secondary Education with establishing an accountability system for the state's expanded voucher program. That hasn't happened.

The 122 students at New Living Word get most of their instruction via DVD, the school's principal told the News-Star in Monroe. And the school has neither facilities nor staff to handle the more than 300 voucher students the state Department of Education OK'd for it, he said.

Besides, he's ignoring an obvious question: Why didn't his staff see from the get-go that New Living Word was a poor candidate for vouchers?

The lack of judgment is breathtaking, but the bigger problem is that Mr. White's office has yet to come up with standards for the program.

That is unfathomable. When lawmakers agreed to expand the voucher program in the spring, they ordered the Department of Education to come up with an accountability system for it. Mr. White and the Board of Elementary and Secondary Education owe it to students and to the public to put strong financial and academic rules in place.

And they need to do so immediately, since the school year will be starting in August.

New Living Word is not the only private and parochial school with questionable academic credentials. At Upperroom Bible Church Academy, which has been in the pilot voucher program in New Orleans for several years, only 24 percent of voucher students tested at grade level this year. That would make the school one of the lowest-performing schools in the state, if it were judged as public schools are judged.

Upperroom Bible has 167 spots open for the fall, which at existing tuition rates would bring the school close to $1 million in public money. With so few voucher students thriving there, that does not seem like a good use of taxpayer money.

There currently is no mechanism, though, for removing voucher students from poorly performing private and parochial schools.

Mr. White and BESE need to remedy that. They also need to set high standards for schools coming into the program. Schools seeking vouchers should be able to prove their financial viability and provide a serious academic plan that demonstrates that they know how to teach children successfully. In addition, there needs to be an easy way for parents to determine how strong a voucher school is.

The voucher program is supposed to be a way out of failing public schools for lower-income students. But for that to be true, the schools getting vouchers actually need to be good schools.